Second Sight
by Chicary
Summary: There is more than one way to see. S10R5


**AN: **This is anime-verse, set during the Battle City Finals before Rishid and Jounouchi's duel.

**Second Sight**

The sparkling ocean water stood rigid, its edge static against the shoreline. Blue sky descended over the horizon, mingling with the purples and oranges of a setting sun that lingered in place. At his feet, neither stone nor litter disturbed the unblemished sand as it stretched to infinity in both directions. And each sound was cued by the hand of an invisible composer.

This mind had been stuck in a memory for so long that the details had been skewed to be made perfect. And its devotion was so strong that it now defined her soul space.

It didn't take long for Malik Ishtar to realize this. He knew the inside of people's heads more than anyone. Rooted here were the strings that dictated their outward behaviour and if, no, _when_ he got hold of those strings, he would be in the position to command them of anything.

Still, the ground didn't grant him a single footprint and he resented the fact that she would likely be as resistant as Jounouchi had been.

Her memory was laughably wrong. For one, it was far too bright for late evening. But this wasn't really why this place agitated his nerves. It was more the fact that the brightness was not unlike the kind of fluorescent lighting that made every ugly detail visible.

There was no shadow or shade by which he could escape it and Malik had to begrudgingly remind himself of why he was here. A breeze from behind blew past him, swerving around his heavy cloak and barely brushing his face. When he reached out his hand, it evaded that too.

After a frustratingly long walk, he saw her seated on the sand. She seemed to be working hard on a sandcastle, which wasn't unusual until he saw the bandages over her eyes. She turned up when he approached. "Um, hi. Can I help you?"

He waved a hand in front of her face and got no reaction. But when he side-stepped the sandcastle, her head turned to follow him. And it continued to follow him when he crouched down beside her. "Hello Shizuka," he said softly, "Forgive me for intruding on your private space. My name is Namu and I'm a friend of Jounouchi."

She quirked her head and set aside the half-filled bucket of sand, dusting herself off before shaking his hand, "Oh, well nice to meet you then. I'm sure my brother has mentioned you even though your name doesn't really sound… familiar right now." Her voice perked up a notched, "But he's made a lot of friends lately and I have a hard time keeping up with everything he tells me."

Malik pulled his hand away, "Are you sure you don't remember me? We're very close, he and I."

She scratched her chin as she thought and he noted that the breeze lifted her hair but didn't so much as move a grain of sand on her castle, "I'm not sure. I think… hmm… Namu, you went to high school with him, right?"

"That's right. We stayed behind after hours to do our homework together."

"Oh yeah! You helped him pass trig! He was really happy about that, you know."

Malik relinquished a practiced smile, even though he still wasn't sure if she could see it or not, "Jounouchi's one of the most hard-working people I know. It was his effort more than anything."

She giggled and pushed the plastic bucket towards him, "Its okay, you don't have to hide it. You're proud of your smarts."

Malik's breath hitched.

"Can you give me a hand?" she continued, "I can't really get it right without my brother. I don't know how he does it, but it always sticks for him. I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know what." As if on cue, a corner of her castle crumbled and melted into the rest of the smooth surface around it.

It had never occurred to Malik how eerie it was to stare at covered eyes. He had a vague understanding of this girl from what he'd learned from Jounouchi but he didn't expect her own mind to bind her vision. He was reminded of how he took comfort in seeing the submission in the faces of his servants; that he'd learned to gauge their loyalty by the way they looked at him. He was also reminded of how most of them couldn't even bear to look past his feet, which, in itself, carried a kind of reassurance.

He started to fill the bucket, if only to get a better feel for her soul space. "What makes you think I'm smart, Shizuka? Did your brother tell you?"

She went back to work, the precision by which she shaped her castle betraying nothing of her impaired condition, "Why? Are you worried about what I think of you?"

"No." His fingers shook lightly as he dropped another handful. It wasn't filling and probably never will. Resistance, he told himself again, was a challenge. And a challenge was, without exception, to be met. "I'm asking because I want to be friends with you, just as I'm friends with Jounouchi."

She paused. "I'm sorry, but how are you friends with my brother again? He must have talked about you but he has lots of friends now. I wrote everyone's names down somewhere for when I meet them but I don't… you…"

"I'm one of his closest friends," he said smoothly, though there was more force in the next handful that he chucked in. "I've been friends with him throughout high school. We did our homework together."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to forget."

"That's fine, Shizuka. Everyone forgets."

"But," And, again, the wind came and flitted through her clothes and her hair and gave her bare arms goose bumps, but touched nothing else, "It's not like you have to prove anything to me, right? I kind of get the feeling that you are. Um, uh, sorry, can you tell me your name again?"

"Namu."

"Hmm, if you say so."

The urge to draw the Sennen Rod from beneath his cloak was overwhelming, but he doubted it would be useful at this point. And he never let it undermine his own intelligence. He was the manipulator and it was just a tool that aided him.

"You're wrong in thinking I'm trying to prove anything," he said bluntly, "You're my friend's sister, is it weird that I want to talk to you?"

"Of course not." She looked at him with eyes behind those blank, threadbare bandages. "I just feel like you're trying really hard. You don't have to, you know?"

There had been slow people before, but rarely this slow. He cracked his knuckles, willing his impatience to wait just a little longer. Stealing a glance at the ocean, that the sun still hadn't moved. It just sat there, idle and useless. No purpose. Her mind was so pitiful for hanging onto this well-worn memory.

She took the dirty bucket from him and, with a few scoops using both hands, filled it to the brim. She packed it tightly with a little plastic shovel before carefully choosing a spot to turn it over. And there was no frustration or irritation or anger when the thing collapsed on her, she just started filling that bucket all over again.

"What do you mean I try too hard?" he asked. He was wasting time going off course but he couldn't stand not knowing.

"Well, I don't know if I should say. I don't want you to get mad at me if I say something the wrong way."

"We're friends, remember?"

She frowned with her mouth, seeming to weigh his words in her mind. She didn't reply.

Under the flap of his cloak, he made a shaky fist. "Shizuka?" he chided.

"I guess I'll have to take your word for it," she said softly. "Maybe then you'll stop saying it."

"Saying what?"

"That we're friends."

Nausea bubbled in his stomach. He searched her downturned face for anything; any smirk or wrinkle or even a twitch in her nose. But the bandages obscured so much more than they should have and her voice; the tone, inflection the cadence, wasn't enough. She sat so that her shoulder was to him and kept the toys between them like a barricade.

"Then what do you want me to say?" He regretted the words immediately. However he'd meant to shape the conversation, it had slipped from his fingers. But he would get it back after this. He would get it back.

There was a long, drawn out pause. She continued to shape the castle with agonizing slowness, repeating the same useless motions over and over and over to no avail.

It was driving him nuts.

He wanted direct and quick answers right then.

It was like how it had been with Jounouchi. Blunt-force disobedience that spawned from what looked like simple stupidity. There were obvious differences between the siblings but she still mashed on his foot with every polished step he took.

And, even though his backup plans kept things moving in his favour, he couldn't let that incident go. What happened with the brother was like a wrinkle in a pressed shirt. It wouldn't stop bothering him until he'd fixed it.

He shot a frustrated fist at the sand, wanting desperately to make some sort of dent to this world. He clawed at the ground, dug into it, flicked and pounded and smashed at it until his hand scarred and sand stuck to his skin and caked beneath his fingernails.

Still, this world didn't relent.

But just when he was about to demand her obedience, Shizuka spoke. "Well, you can talk about what's making you so sad."

"What?"

He turned away when she looked at him, "Like right here," she touched her stomach, "At the centre, you're keeping something painful. And you keep it there because that's where it's safest."

Malik's anger flared, the blood rushing to his ears. "And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

She flinched and drew back but didn't stop staring at him. The blankness where her eyes were supposed to be gave him absolutely nothing to work with; nothing to seize or bend or even appeal.

Hesitantly, she reached out her hand and he watched it as it slid towards him and grip onto his fingers. He found himself staring, for a split second vulnerably lost before his mind snapped into action and he tore himself away from her. "Don't you dare touch me."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I wish I could do more to help you. No one deserves to be so sad for so long."

Through a sharp breath, Malik sneered. "You can help me by doing what I say."

Yet there was a whisper of doubt in the back of his mind. It was so rare that it was almost foreign. But then…

She set aside her things and clasped her hands in her lap. "If it will help you."

Malik could feel the next wisp of wind bring his hair up to caress his face. His cloak billowed behind him; lightening his weight. It was, he supposed, how her mind chose to embrace his presence.

He revelled in it, spreading his arms wide and allowing his whole body to sink in. More and more whooshed past him until he had to brace himself to keep from being pushed over. Still, it got even stronger and he narrowly had time to figure out what was happening when he was thrown against the blinded girl.

The wind stopped and Malik found himself in her arms. She was warm; her scent of wild flowers. She held him protectively, leaning him against her chest and pressing her cheek to the crown of his head. One hand was on his back, while the other tangled through his hair. And her softness dissolved the tension in him one and by one.

Memories, smells and sounds of worlds outside this one, of a time far from this one, grazed his mind. It was something that should have been deeply familiar but was not. He suddenly longed for an experience he couldn't put a name to because it had never before existed to him. In that moment, be was someone he'd ceased to be a long time ago.

When clarity returned to him, he did the only thing he could do in the face of the unfamiliar, ill-prepared.

Malik fled.

**-End-**

**AN: **Maybe it's because I saw the dub first, but I can't tell if there's a difference between a character's "mind" and their "Soul Room." So, yeah, I just made them the same thing for the purposes of this fic.


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